The Sony a7R V will turn three years old this fall, but photographers would be forgiven for thinking it was much older than that. A lot has happened within and outside Sony’s Alpha mirrorless lineup since the a7R V landed, but the venerable a7R V remains a favorite of ours here at PetaPixel.
When it arrived in October 2022, the a7R V marked the debut of Sony’s AI-powered autofocus system, dubbed “Real Time Recognition.” Armed with a dedicated AI processor that has become standard on Sony’s subsequent cameras, including the very familiar Sony a7C R, in some ways a “baby” a7R V, and the company’s blazing-fast flagship a9 III and a1 II cameras. However, many other aspects of the a7R V were unchanged, including its 61-megapixel backside-illuminated Exmor R CMOS image sensor, leading the camera to fly under the radar a bit these days. And that’s a big mistake, the a7R V is still a fantastic camera.
While newer, shinier high-res full-frame cameras have hit the scene since the a7R V, including the Nikon Z8 in 2023 and the Canon EOS R5 II last year, the a7R V (and a7C R and a7R IV, for that matter) still delivers the most megapixels of any full-frame camera on the market. If image quality is king, the a7R V with its upgraded processor wears the crown.
Perhaps it is surprising how well the a7R V still holds up, actually. As PetaPixel showed last October, when you put the Sony a7R V head-to-head against the Canon EOS R5 II and Nikon Z8, the a7R V holds its own in several key categories, including image quality, displays, and general autofocus.
There’s little question that the Nikon Z8 and Canon EOS R5 II are both superior options for action photography, as they shoot at considerably faster frame rates than the a7R V. They are also better video cameras than the a7R V. However, for general photography, travel, landscapes, studio work, and portraits, the a7R V is still excellent. It’s smaller, lighter, and has a 9.44-million dot EVF that was ahead of its time in 2022 and still extremely good in 2025.
In our R5 II versus Z8 versus a7R V showdown, we assigned each camera points, one through three, based on its ranking across five categories: handling, displays, image quality, action photography, and video. The camera with the most points wins. Ultimately, the Canon EOS R5 II came out on top, followed by the Nikon Z8, and finally, the a7R V in third place. The results make sense; the R5 II and Z8 are fantastic, broadly more versatile cameras than the Sony a7R V.
However, while categories must be given equal weight for an overall battle, not all photographers view cameras that way. While some will shoot just about everything under the Sun, and I’d put myself in that camp when doing camera reviews, most people have more specific photographic goals they want to achieve. They may wish to photograph mostly wildlife, then the R5 II or Z8 is probably the play (or a Sony a1 II), or portraits (hello, a7R V), or landscapes (hello again, a7R V), and so on. Not everyone wants a camera that does everything at the expense of performance in certain areas. Some photographers just care about a camera’s abilities in specific situations.
I’m very familiar with the Sony a7R V. I reviewed it in 2022 when I was Reviews Editor at Imaging Resource, and I had a blast using it to shoot landscapes, travel shots, and even wildlife. Landscape photography is my favorite genre, so it’s little surprise the a7R V tickled my fancy and why I shoot with the Fujifilm GFX system — speed be damned, I want pixels!
As I wrote in 2022, “… the a7R V produces among the best image quality of any full-frame camera. The high-resolution performance is second to none.” As it turns out, that’s still true today, and there are no signs of the situation changing anytime soon. Neither Canon nor Nikon have broken the 50-megapixel barrier in the mirrorless era, and frankly, I don’t know why they would, given how much overall performance and speed they’re extracting from their 45-megapixel sensors right now. They offer an incredible blend of performance for stills and video that would be very challenging to replicate at higher resolution.
I recently had the chance to revisit the a7R V while reviewing Sony’s new FE 400-800mm f/6.3-8 G OSS telephoto zoom lens, which is terrific for wildlife photography, by the way, and I got to experience the a7R V with mostly fresh eyes.
I’ve extensively used the Nikon Z9, which delivers only slightly better performance than the more affordable Nikon Z8, and the Canon EOS R5 II since first using the a7R V in 2022. So I expected to be dissatisfied with the a7R V’s relatively slower continuous shooting performance for wildlife. I was surprised to find I only occasionally missed the superior burst shooting performance of the faster cameras.
I then returned to my original Sony a7R V review and realized that I shot many wildlife photos with the camera back then, including birds in flight. As Kate Garibaldi demonstrated in her feature about switching from adapted lenses to native glass, the a7R V is an entirely competent wildlife camera. It’s not the best, but it’s still damn good.
I’m also pretty surprised by how many of my original “What I like most about the Sony a7R V” bullet points still ring true in 2025. I lauded the camera’s design, vari-angle display, excellent EVF, fantastic sharpness, class-leading dynamic range, impressive AI-powered autofocus system, and better in-body image stabilization. These are all still true now despite the relatively much stronger competition that hit the scene since.
I dinged the a7R V in 2022 for relying on expensive CFexpress Type A cards to get the best performance, the annoying pixel-shift shooting mode, and modest continuous shooting speeds. Yeah, that’s all still true, although CFexpress Type A cards are at least more affordable these days.
I only ventured down memory lane because I was surprised by how much I enjoyed using the a7R V again during my Sony 400-800mm Review, but I’m glad I did because it turns out that the Sony a7R V has genuinely stood the test of time better than I realized.
Sure, I can continue to criticize the a7R V for its relatively slow image sensor, so-so continuous shooting speeds, and lackluster video performance. But as I concluded two and a half years ago, “If I stop knocking the a7R V for what it isn’t and instead focus on what it is, then it’s clear to see that it’s an excellent camera.” It was excellent then and still is today.
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